his bottleneck is the video card, anything Nvidia 9800 or below won't cut it, you can upgrade to a mid grade 400 series for around $150.

I could, but then my processor would end up being the bottleneck, it actually already is, the PS2 emulator runs a bit sluggish on most games. I've upgraded this machine once from an nvidia 7600 and 1gig of ram. I think I just need a new machine altogether. FFXIV has been the only game to give me any sort of trouble. Anything I've played, I can run at almost max settings. When I have more trouble with more games, then I'll get a new one. For now it's satisfactory. That's the only thing stopping me from getting a new machine, well, that and money.

FFXIV has high requirements. I can play Crysis maxed out without any Anti Aliasing and get a solid 40 frames. However FFXIV benchmark puts me on "slightly above average performance"

Then again that is the high res client. Surely the low res client will be able to accommodate you, Archendrus? If a mid-level machine like yours cant run an MMO they are seriously going to be damaging their playerbase.

It was the low res benchmark that I ran, I can't remember the exact score, but it was high in the "Unplayable" range lol and I can run Mass Effect 1 + 2, Fallout 3, on almost max. The actual beta was pretty choppy for me, but cutscenes were completely frame by frame >_< But like I said, there wasn't even a graphics option menu in the beta, so it's possible that it could be tweaked. If it turns out that I really can't run it, then you're right, there's gonna be a ton of other people that can't run it either and it could hurt the playerbase. There is still the PS3 option though....and it's a Final Fantasy title so they'll probably make a killing on it.